Saturday, May 24, 2014

REVIEW 265: HEROPANTI

Release date:

May 23, 2014

Director:

Sabbir Khan

Cast:

Language:

Tiger Shroff,
Kriti Sanon, Prakash Raj, Vikram Singh

Hindi

When was the last time you watched a film in which
the heroine’s toughest competition in the looks department was the hero? Tiger
Shroff can take off his shirt and display that ripped torso all he wants, but he
can’t alter the fact that his over-muscled body is a complete mismatch with the
smooth, almost hairless face and effeminate dancing. There’s also a mismatch
with his partly Caucasian features when he lip synchs all-out-desi song lyrics like “O gal na kar tu chhad ne di / Plan hai ghodi chadhne di /
Paas mein aa zara hotth mila aur /Mere naal tu whistle baja”.

On debut, Tiger romances a girl, dances to
choreographed moves, single-handedly bashes up groups of goons, has a catchline
he repeats throughout and, like all aspiring Salman/Akshay clones, even has his
shirt torn off by a bad guy towards the end of the film so that he gets to stay
topless for an entire sequence. If acting is his strength he does not tap into
it though, instead spending large parts of the film trying to look intensely in
love by staring into the distance.

Therein lies the difference between him and his
female co-star. Kriti Sanon made her big-screen debut earlier this year in the
Telugu film 1: Nenokkadine opposite
Mahesh Babu. In her first Bollywood role, in a film clearly designed as a
showcase for Tiger, son of Jackie Shroff, she stands out all the same because
she happens to be more than just a pretty face: her looks are complemented by a
screen presence and the fact that she can act.

Heropanti’s story is as half-baked
as the means Tiger uses to attract attention to himself. A young Jat girl in
Haryana (played by Sandeepa Dhar) runs away with her lover on her wedding day.
Her father (Choudhary, played by Prakash Raj) rounds up all the boy’s friends,
convinced that one of them would have aided and abetted the elopement. Among
them is Bablu (Tiger) who has fallen for local girl Dimpy (Kriti), having been smitten
by her on sight on a street one day. Don’t ask. That’s the way love still happens
in many Hindi films.

Dimpy turns out to be the runaway bride’s younger
sister, which means we already know Dad does not approve of lowwe marriages.
There’s a lot of yelling and flying limbs through Choudhary’s enraged pursuit
of his elder girl across cities. The noise can be excused. What is unforgivable
are the mixed messages being sent out, including an oblique justification of a
father’s violence towards a daughter who picks her own husband.

On the one hand Bablu fights hard to help the
couple. On the other hand he says at one point in the same context, “Baap hamesha galat nahin hota hai (A
father is not always wrong).” In one scene he tells Dimpy, “Women are kept like
cattle in your family,” while exhorting her to assert herself, dream dreams and
take her life into her own hands. Yet elsewhere he tells Choudhary, “I don’t
want to take away your right (haq) to
choose your daughter’s husband for her.” Yes he said “haq”! Seriously! This film is set in 2014! And decisions in this
matter are all his and Choudhary’s, not hers. This is DDLJ’s populist philosophy revisited, except that it’s 10 times
more regressive, dangerous and irresponsible, knowing what we know about honour
killings. Writer Sanjeev Dutta and director Sabbir Khan seem anxious to tread a
fine line between projecting themselves as progressive without antagonising
conservatives in the audience.

When some goondas
are about to gangrape Dimpy, Bablu enters the scene and tells them: “Hindi mein nahin, English mein no. And no,
means no.” At a time when the issue of consent in sexual relations is being
hotly debated in India, this is an important point to emerge from a mainstream film.
But consent is an extension of a woman’s autonomy over all aspects of her life,
including decisions about marriage. Clearly Dutta and Khan are not committed to
anything they are saying.

This is unsurprising considering that Khan debuted
as a director with 2009’s Akshay Kumar-Kareena Kapoor-starrer Kambakkht Ishq in which casually and
repeatedly referring to a woman as “bitch” was deemed acceptable for a man.
This is not a director who respects women.

When a film transgresses in this fashion, nothing
else seems worth commenting on, but a job’s a job so here goes… Senior southern
Indian character actor Prakash Raj has so far been restricted to playing over-the-top
serio-comic villains in Bollywood. This role and performance are a refreshing change.
Equally interesting is Heropanti’s
music. That lovely flute piece played by Jackie Shroff’s Jackie Dada and his
father (Bharat Bhushan) in Hero in
1983 have been woven into the background score of this film and into the song Whistle baja for which Tiger even plays
the flute on screen. Nice touch. Sajid-Wajid have composed a bunch of pleasant songs
for Heropanti, with Tabah and Aa raat bhar standing out.

Whenever anyone asks Bablu if he’s about to do heropanti, he replies: “Kya kare. Doosron ko aati nahin aur meri
jaati nahin.” Giving a hero one such punchline was a popular formula in Hindi
films of the 1980s, the decade in which Tiger’s dad reigned in Bollywood along
with Anil Kapoor, Sanjay Dutt and Sunny Deol, while Amitabh Bachchan loomed in the
background. Salman carries forward that tradition even into this decade of this
century. Tiger has a decent voice. What he needs is the pizzazz to carry off
such claptrap. He doesn’t have it, not yet. You see, pizzazz is not a quality
easily found in factory-made, assembly-line products.

I was reading your review which I found to be very judicious. And then I reached the last line which made me curious to know how this system of copyrighting works. I have questions like:

I though Everymedia is just a movie marketing agency and the poster will be the property of UTV as movie is produced by UTV. Who has the actual ownership of the marketing material like poster trailer etc?

What happens if you don't include that line?

What if you have included some image from the trailer instead of the poster?

I am asking you all this because you clearly are a renowned film critic and journalist, you have even published a book which I am planning on reading. And on the top of that you are a teacher as well, so please help me cure my curiosity. Even sharing some references would help.

About Me

Anna MM Vetticad is an award-winning journalist, journalism teacher and author of the critically acclaimed bestseller The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic, an overview of the Hindi film industry presented through an account of a year in which she watched every single Bollywood film released in India’s National Capital Region. A journalist since 1994, she has worked with India Today, The Indian Express and Headlines Today. At HT she hosted her own interview show Star Trek which drew all India’s eminent entertainment personalities. While Anna has spent most of her career as a behind-the-scenes editorial person, she has also reported on most major Indian entertainment and lifestyle events and several international ones including Cannes and the Oscars, in addition to being the film critic for Headlines Today. She is currently reporting and writing for multiple publications on cinema and social issues with a focus on gender concerns. The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic is available on amazon.com, ebay.in, flipkart.com, ombooksinternational.com, ombooks.com, infibeam.com, homeshop18.com and dialabook.in among other websites, and in stores across India. Twitter: @annavetticad